R. Coutinho et al., RELATION OF PARENTAL BIRTH WEIGHTS TO INFANT BIRTH-WEIGHT AMONG AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND WHITES IN ILLINOIS - A TRANSGENERATIONAL STUDY, American journal of epidemiology, 146(10), 1997, pp. 804-809
The authors used a transgenerational data set of Illinois vital record
s to ascertain the relation between parental birth weights and infant
birth weight, The infant generation consisted of all African Americans
and whites born in Illinois during 1989-1991. The parent generation i
ncluded the mothers and fathers who were also born in Illinois between
1956 and 1975. In the infant cohort, the rate of low birth weight (LB
W) (<2,500 g) was 11.7% for African Americans (n = 15,287) versus 5.0%
for whites (n = 117,708) (relative risk (RR) = 2.3, 95% confidence in
terval (CI) 2.2-2.5). For African Americans, the LBW rate was 17.9% am
ong those born to LBW mothers (n = 1,943) compared with 10.8% among th
ose born to non-LBW mothers (n = 13,344) (RR = 1.8, 95% CI 1.6-1.9), F
or whites, the LBW rate was 8.5% among those born to LBW mothers (n =
2,174) compared with 4.8% among those born to non-LBW mothers (n = 115
,534) (RR = 1.7, 95% CI 1.6-2.0), A weaker association was observed be
tween paternal birth weight and infant birth weight, The authors concl
ude that parental birth weights are important risk factors for LBW in
both African Americans and whites.